


Pain in the Patella

by FaerieMayden



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Bad Puns, Haha I'm so punny, He's the laziest but the fastest, High School, Like, Other, Post-Pacifist Route, Track team captain Sans, really fast, undertale - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-23
Updated: 2016-03-23
Packaged: 2018-05-28 11:48:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6327739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FaerieMayden/pseuds/FaerieMayden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Couldn't think of a better name.<br/>Simple friendshippy one-shot between our favorite skeleton (aside from The Great Papyrus and He Who Speaks in Hands, of course!) and you, the reader.<br/>Tried to keep things gender-neutral for all to enjoy.<br/>Might continue with a two-shot? So far I'm kinda meh about it.<br/>Feel free to let me know what you think!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pain in the Patella

You sat in your second period journalism class, typing an article. It's been two years since the Monsters emerged from the Underground, and you were endlessly curious. You were in a rarely seen integrated school, and were particularly interested in the 1,000 years spent banished. You would kill (not really, your LOVE might as well be less than zero [if it were possible], and you'd like to keep it that way) to have an audience with King Asgore and Queen Toriel, but knew this to be highly unlikely. You did, however, know their adopted Human child, Frisk.  
Frisk was fourteen, a freshman while you a sophomore. They didn't speak very often, having selective mutism, so instead they mostly signed. Fortunately there were teachers that could handle a kid like them, or else they would have likely been forced to go to a school for kids with similar issues that strangle communication. You yourself are studying sign language, and Frisk gets ridiculously hyper whenever you give it a shot, even if you're pretty sure you suck.  
You were in the hall, press pass around your neck, when you came across them in the hall. They're fortunately happy to help you out, signing in response to your questions.  
It was not really dark down there like I expected, Frisk signed slowly. There was actually a lot of life. It was almost like being back on the surface again...you make sure to write it word-for-word. I was only down there for a few months, though. If you wanna ask someone about it, ask Sans. He's a skeleton and a junior. Heads up though, he's pretty...they hesitate, as if thinking of the sign for the word...punny. You internally groan, but nod, smile, and thank Frisk for their time.  
You don't see Sans until the next day, which is okay, because you still had a few days before the article would be due. You'd seen him heading out onto the track after school, and decide that it wouldn't kill you to miss the bus. It was only a fourty minute walk. "Hello, are you Sans?" You ask, getting a nod and grin in response. He was dressed to run, but instead sat on the bleachers with a posture that suggested he did not plan to get up for the next hour. "What can I do for you, Sweetheart?" He asks with a small grin, and you try to not let the nickname effect your mood. "I'm writing an article on the Underground underneath Mt. Ebott, and was wondering if I could ask you a couple of questions." As you say this, you review your list of said questions. You wait to see the nod in the corner of your eye before starting.  
Afterwards, you ask him why he's on track if he doesn't do anything. He asks you jokingly "how that's relevant to the article" before insisting he is the track team captain, and on top of that the fastest on the team. When you ask him to prove it, he's sitting on the bleachers one second and then gone on the next. He's on the opposite side of the track in mere seconds, and when he's run a mile in less than a minute he teleports back in front of you, nearly leading you to drop your notebook.  
You tell him he's cheating. He just shrugs and grins cheekily at you.  
The walk home afterwards was more than worth it.  
\--  
After that conversation, Sans hardly leaves you alone. You suppose you don't mind the company, being on the lonelier side. Besides; through him, over the next several months, you meet and befriend Napstablook and Monster Kid, two of the most sweet (depressed and rambunctious, respectively, but not in a bad way) Monsters you'd ever met. Sans would sit with the three of you at lunch--occasionally accompanied by Frisk--each day emerging from the lunch line with a burger practically swimming in ketchup, at first making you so ill you almost can't bring yourself to finish your Hot Pocket. But at this point, you were as used to it as you could get. He was always cracking jokes, keeping the mood light. You think you liked Frisk's silent laughter the most as they sign rapidly, admittedly too fast for you to understand, simultaneously munching on a hot dog. You chide them for laughing with their mouth full, but they'd only snort and start deliberately chewing louder. You always lose to their squirrel's cheeks and end up laughing despite how gross it is.  
But one day, you have a bad time. Like, a really bad time.  
You'd been working on writing a story in a journal of yours during math class. You were a good deal in, and had dedicated hours of blood, sweat and maybe a little tears to it's contents. You got up and sharpened your pencil. When you come back, the book was gone. You panic internally, then get up to recycle a piece of paper. You see a flash of purple from the inside and lift the lid.  
Inside the recycling bin is your story, crumpled up and various pages ripped out of the book. Some even just ripped to shreds altogether. Tears pool in your eyes, and the bell rings. The kids filter out what seems like much quicker than usual, most of them not unfamiliar with your rarely seen but intense wrath. You break into a silent fit of tears right there in the middle of the classroom, shivering with rage and staring at your vandalised journal like you just can't comprehend what you're seeing. Your teachers promise they'll find out who did it before sending you off to your next class. You head to said next class, but almost immediately pull your emergency slip from your wallet, flash it at your teacher, and make a beeline for the guidance office.  
When you walk in, Sans is sitting at the table you usually sit at when you're bothered, but don't feel like talking it out. He smiles in what you think is sorrow at your reddened face, and you simply glower--looking more like a pout, but you'd never admit it--unable to bear the thought of his teasing. At the same time, you knew that while he is a jokester, Sans isn't an asshole. So you sit down next to him, folding your head into your arms on the table. Moments later you feel a bony hand through your hoodie, resting on your back, and lift your head somewhat, looking at the skeleton from the corner of your eye.  
"What's got your muscles in a twist?" Sans asks you, pressing on a knot in your shoulder blades. Your back arches, the knot so stiff it's ticklish, and you glare. "I don't really want to talk about it," you say, voice strained and somewhat raw from stifling your emotions so aggressively. Sans' smile quickly turns into a frown. You figure the fact he can do this without muscles--among other things, such as eating with no digestive system--is somehow the work of magic and decide against questioning it.  
Your desire to keep what ails you a secret from Sans fills you with Determination.  
"C'mon, toss me a bone here," Sans pleads, and you groan disdainfully. You're glad it's last period...too bad there's still an hour left.  
"Look, Sans," you start, trying to keep you voice even. "Just drop it, okay? I really, really don't want to talk about it right now." It's quiet for a moment before Sans sighs and relents. You visibly relax. But Sans' hand never does leave your back. You don't make him remove it. Nor do you wonder what he's doing in feelingsville, which you later feel bad about.  
"Maybe you'll feel up to platellin' me later," he says, meant to sound like a monologue, but deliberately loud enough that you can hear. You roll your eyes hard from under your eyelids.  
\--  
Sans asks you to come over to his place after school. You've never been invited over there before, and you shouldn't be by this point, but are honestly a bit suspicious. You text your dad saying you are going to a friend's house, and he replies saying to be back no later than nine, the typical agreement. Sans refuses to talk to you on the ride home, which frustrates you. You also wonder why he doesn't just teleport you there. Maybe he just doesn't feel up to it. When you get into the house, Papyrus is there.  
"Ah, Sans has actually brought home a friend! I, the great Papyrus, shall prepare a celebratory dinner: spaghetti!" Papyrus chirps, running for the kitchen. You figured Sans didn't have company over very often. But judging from said skeleton's eyeroll, you both conclude that spaghetti is a regular dish, and that it's in good nature. You envy their relationship. "Don't forget the Sansonings," Sans calls with a light laugh, and there's the sound of a pan colliding with the floor. Sans's chuckling turns into roars of laughter while Papyrus yells the shorter skeleton's name in exasperation of his shenanigans.  
Sans is quick to lead you upstairs, into his bedroom. It's an honest-to-God mess, but he says nothing, acting as if nothing is there and picking over the mess with ease, as if he'd blazed a specific, unseen trail as he leaves you to stumble through, careful to not step on anything. He sits on the foot of the bed, and after some hesitation you join him. He stares into your eyes for a moment and you do the same, blushing at the intensity in his gaze, when he suddenly leans in. You're about to lean back, say something to stop him and expecting a kiss you don't want, when he instead envelops you in a hug that should be uncomfortable with all of his sharp edges, but instead feels warm and brings hot tears to your eyes. They blur your vision and make your eyes burn.  
You don't understand.  
"You're a sad person," Sans tells you, and you know he's referring to your demeanor, rather than calling you pathetic. "You walk like a zombie, a husk of a Human being, and it's painful to watch. When I saw you crying today, I didn't know what to do." His phalanges comb through your hair, scratching gently at your scalp, and you eyes flutter shut as a shuddering breath escapes you. "I'm not really good at this whole 'comforting others' thing, but I felt bad just watching you hurt. So I tried to be funny..." He hesitates, "it only seemed to make it worse." You'd never seen this side of Sans before, and it was so strange.  
"The truth is, I like you a lot." Sans finally outs, and your breath catches. Your heart aches, but you know it's because you feel bad. You don't feel the same. It seems he knows it, too. "I know you don't feel the same, and that's okay. I just thought you should know, and being friends is enough. It means a lot that you're letting me comfort you." Sans sounds sad, too, and you feel awful. But you know at the same time that pity dating is never a good idea. Sans leans back, smiling awkwardly, before leaning forward and pressing a soft, chaste kiss to your forehead with his teeth. You flush with another wave of tears, which he brushes away with his thumbs.  
Sans guides the two of you to lay down, and you do, laying on your sides and looking at each other. At some point, you fall asleep, tucked into his chest with your hands curled up to your own. He raises an arm to throw it over your waist, but hesitates before instead letting it rest on his side once more. Papyrus barges in at some point, yelling but then muttering an uncharacteristically quiet, "the spaghetti is ready--o-oh my," before being shooed from the room. Using his magic, Sans shuts the door with a click of the lock. He resumes watching you sleep, and lifts a hand to brush your hair from your face.  
"I have a lot of problems too," he mumbles, thinking of the hundreds upon hundreds of timelines gone wrong, and the RESETs that followed, keeping him constantly on his toes and always playing out differently, and yet the same. He was the only one to ever remember every timeline in explicit detail, though after awhile they sort of mold together, mixed up. The only other person to know about the doomed timelines at all was Frisk, and for them it was all like blurry dreams, half forgotten after waking up. "Maybe you'll share yours someday, and I can share mine."  
You proceed to sleep for the next several hours, the most peacefully in awhile. When it's time to go home, you don't want to leave.


End file.
